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About Me

I am primarily a feltmaker and author of books on feltmaking. I create wall pieces in felt and experiment with new directions in feltmaking so that I can eventually write articles about them. My business partner, Kathe Todd-Hooker and I have Fine Fiber Press and Studio, where we teach and publish books on feltmaking, tapestry weaving and related fiber arts. We also sell equipment for feltmakers and tapestry weavers.

I have been doing a lot of bellydancing lately and am now going to start teaching a beginner's class. Wearing something on the hips is ...

Saturday, June 29, 2013

In April I traveled to California to study with Leiko Uchiyama at the Tin Thimble in Loomis, just outside of Sacramento. I also took a fast lesson in how to make felt by the no-roll method from Sharon Mansfield, one of the co-owners of the Tin Thimble. Well this weekend was the first time I've had a chance to try this method. I needed to make some laminated pre-felts that I will resist dye sometime soon. Normally this would have required a lot of rolling, so I wanted to try this method.

BTW, I needed to make some of these laminated pre-felts because I lost some samples of resist dyed cloth backed pre-felts that I made in a class I took with Pam de Groot last summer. I actually took two of her classes at the Midwest Felting
Symposium in Madison, WI. I enjoyed both classes. But I was really intrigued by
the Mosaic Taster class I took. In this class we laminated 19 micron merino top
to silk fabrics to create a backed pre-felt. (A pre-felt with a cloth face.)
We then resist tied these pre-felts and dyed them in acid dyes. The idea was
that we would make a patterned purse by cutting up these various dyed pre-felts
and laying them on a wool covered template with the wool side of the pre-felt
facing down against the wool covered template. In this way the wool sides could
felt together, with the silk side of the pre-felt facing out. (The silk shows
the resist dyed patterns better than the wool side, imo.) For various reasons,
I didn't make a purse with my dyed pre-felts. I have been thinking ever since
about how to use these lovely gems. I wanted to make a vest with the dyed
pre-felts creating a pattern on the surface. But I wasn't sure about how to go
about this.

Well, finally, I figured out a plan for the vest when I was
teaching in Bellingham last week. I was so excited to get started! But,
somehow, between Bellingham and home in Albany, I lost this bag of samples. :
(

So I decided to make some more pre-felts today. I
had wanted to try the no-roll tumbler dryer method of making felt, so I
used it on the laminated pre-felts. I used 19 micron merino, and two different
cloths. One was 5 mm silk habotai (paj) and the other was 3.5 mm silk gauze.
The no roll method worked so well! I'm very impressed. I made seven different
chunks of pre-felt today that will eventually be resist dyed. And I barely
broke a sweat, even though the temperature here in Oregon is in the 90's.

I put out a piece of 1 ml plastic and put silk
fabric on it. Then I laid the merino on the silk in two, thin layers.

Photo shows second layer of wool in process, covering the silk gauze.

I wet
out the whole thing with cool, soapy water and covered the wet pile with another piece of 1 ml
plastic. I sprinkled a little soapy water on top of the plastic so my hands
would slide easily and I rubbed my hands over the surface for a short time.

Photo shows covering the wet pile with a second layer of plastic.

Photo shows rubbing the top of the plastic. My hands slid easily over the plastic because it was wet and soapy.

I
folded over the edges of the plastic drop cloth so it was tight against the wool
stack. I rolled up a damp towel and placed it on one end of the drop cloth. I
rolled the towel up with the plastic covered wool/silk stack and tied it with
strips cut from an old t-shirt.

Photo shows rolled bundle, tied with t-shirt strips.

I put the first tied bundle in the dryer on air fluff
only for 20 minutes (This was too much time and the felt was almost too hard to
use as a pre-felt. I changed the time, until eventually I was doing it for
around 5 minutes in the dryer.) Some of the pre-felts were done after the first
time through the dryer, while others needed to be rolled from the opposite end
and put back into the dryer for another 5 minutes.

In a day, I was able to make a nice stack of laminated pre-felts using both the habotai and the gauze. I was super impressed with the process and the
fabric backed pre-felts came out really well. I'm looking forward to dyeing
them.